Vanilla Cake with a Cinnamon Swirl and Cream Cheese Swirl baked in//Cardamom Sea Salt Buttercream, cut with a touch of cream cheese
This cake is a happy cake. I call it my cinny bun cake! It's my classic softest-and-moistest-ever vanilla cake, with a cream cheese and a cinnamon sugar swirl baked into it. The most special cardamom buttercream fills and envelops the cake, to add sweetness, creaminess, and just the most special flavour to compliment the cinnamon. Did I say that it's special yet?
What's nice is that this cake front loads the labour with the two swirls that are baked into the cake, but after that it's easy breezy to make and assemble. In the sense that there's no filling between the layers to make, or wells to create with the buttercream. You just frost and decorate it once the cake is baked and cooled, which is really relaxing.
The cake part itself is one that I love to vary for different flavours—it's so soft, delicate and moist...ahh I just love it. My other favourite easy recipe that I use it in is my Coconut, White Chocolate & Raspberry Cake. It features the silkiest Swiss meringue buttercream, flavoured with organic coconut spread and white chocolate. I also came up with a super simple coconut filling that you just mix together with a spoon. I wanted some texture in the middle, without adding extra work (I wanted this one to not be too laborious), as well as an extra burst of flavour—paired with the sweet and tangy raspberry filling, it brings the whole thing together!
If you feel like more of a complex recipe to tackle, you can also see it in action in my Earl Grey, Blueberry & Vanilla Bean Cake. That one contains no coconut extract, but rather real vanilla bean, and swaps in refined coconut oil for the neutral taste. That's a super cool creation of a cake too. I make earl grey infused butter for the buttercream, and cut it with a bit of cream cheese. I don't think I've ever seen that before...and I promise it's not like one of those weird "trying to be cool" trendy flavours that you have to pretend to like to uphold a sophisticated foodie image hehe. Anyhoo! Wonderful cake. And if you’d like to learn more about the crumb of the cake, and the rational behind the method, it’s in the forward for that recipe! Now, if you'd like to try another cake (with more conventional—albeit still exceptional—flavours) with the same base recipe, check out my Cardamom-Spiced Caramelized Pear Cake with Brown Butter Chai Buttercream. That one uses brown butter instead of plain butter, with the addition of cardamom, and the usage of vanilla extract only. That one is a project, but so worth it. Ahh, I dream of that roasted pear caramel.
Anyway! This cinnamon bun swirl cake is the easiest of the bunch (unless you find Swiss meringue super easy like me to make, in which case the coconut cake is about on the same level of labour and difficulty), and is such a crowd pleaser. The different textures of the swirls add such a fun mouth feel, and the flavours are frankly just to die for. Happy to share the magic.
That's all for now. I'll just add as a note that I was hanging on to this recipe for months, because I made it for friends, and as orders for customers, and so haven't had the opportunity to photograph the inside of the cake. But I've decided to be more chill about how I do things. I'll add pictures when I can make it again, in a setting that allows for that. And until then, the internet has this beauty of a recipe! I realized it was rude of me to withhold it from the world. I'm a busy teacher, and I'm going to start being less worried about how I do things. From now on, I'll post what I can, when I can, and the planet will have more yummies in it. Yay!
Recipe:
Makes 1 6-inch cake
Notes
I specify the type of salt used, as different salts are more or less salty than others. If you don’t have the same kind of salt used, be mindful of this and adjust accordingly. Generally speaking, pink Himalayan salt is less salty than most others.
Top tip for room-temperature eggs: if ever you don’t have the time to take them out of the fridge early enough, or yet if you forget, you can place them in a bowl covered with hot water for 5 minutes, and they will become room-temperature just like that!
Likewise, you can bring your cream to room temperature by lightly heating it in a saucepan.
Make sure that the bowl used for the egg whites, as well as the beaters, are perfectly clean. Even trace amounts of a fat can hinder the whites from whipping into stiff peaks.
Video link to demonstrate how to fold egg whites into cake batter, for those who haven’t done this before: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfgz10xdq6k Skip to the 2 minute 45 second mark.
For those new to baking, to remove cakes from tins—place a plate on top of the top of the tin, upside down (meaning, the side that you would eat off of is facing down). Hold the plate to the tin with 2 hands, and in a swift, fluid motion, turn it upside-down. The cake should fall onto the plate. If it does not, give it a vertical shake, until this happens. You can also gently press the cake away from the sides of the tins using a butter knife. Put the now empty tin down. Place a cooling rack on top of the cake (which is now on a plate), and invert it so that it is now on the cooling rack, right-side up.
I learned how to make these swirls from a blondie recipe in the book 100 Cookies! So special thanks to Sarah Kieffer for bringing this ridiculously delicious sweetness into my life.
To make the cake, you will first make the 2 components that will be swirled into the cake batter: a cream cheese swirl, and a cinnamon sugar swirl.
Cream Cheese Swirl
Ingredients
170 g cream cheese, room temperature
75 g sugar
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
small pinch of salt
Instructions
Place cream cheese in a medium bowl, and beat on high speed with an electric mixer for 2 minutes.
Add remaining ingredients, and beat on high for another 30 seconds.
Leave at room temperature until ready to use.
Cinnamon Sugar Swirl
Ingredients
22 g butter, room temperature
75 g brown sugar
1 1/2 tbsp cinnamon (not packed)
1/8 tsp salt (pink Himalayan)
Instructions
Place butter and brown sugar in a small saucepan, set over medium-low heat. Stir often until the butter is melted and mixed in.
Turn off the heat, and mix in the cinnamon and salt.
Leave the saucepan on the (turned off) burner until ready to use. *I find if you take it off the burner, it cools down too much before you're ready to use it, and the mixture hardens, which obviously won't swirl properly. I have good luck this way, but if yours ever hardened a touch anyway, just lightly re-heat it before using, or mix in another 1/2-1 tbsp of butter.
Cinnamon Bun Cake
Ingredients
60 g butter, room temperature
105 g coconut oil (measured before melting)
265 g sugar
3 tbsp pure vanilla extract
235 g cake flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 + 1/8 tsp salt (pink Himalayan)
1 cup full-fat cream, room temperature
4 egg whites, room temperature
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and ensure that oven rack is positioned in the middle.
Butter and flour 3 6-inch baking tins.
Melt coconut oil in a small saucepan. Pour into a small bowl to cool completely.
Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl. Whisk to combine.
Place egg whites in a very clean medium bowl and set aside.
Place butter in a large bowl, and beat on high speed with an electric mixer for 30 seconds.
Add in sugar and cooled oil. Beat on high for 1 minute and 30 seconds.
Add in vanilla extract. Beat on high for 30 more seconds.
Add in dry ingredients and cream, alternating in additions—do 3 rounds of dry ingredients, and 2 rounds of cream (begin and end with dry ingredients). Each addition should be fully combined on low speed. Do not over mix.
With fresh, clean beaters, beat egg whites on high speed with an electric mixer until stiff, about 2-3 minutes. If you’re not sure if your whites are stiff enough, know that you should be able to turn the bowl completely upside-down without anything budging.
Gently incorporate whites into the cake batter, using a spatula, until fully combined. [For those new to baking—see notes for a link to a video showing how to do this. That is, there’s a specific technique to it to avoid bursting the air bubbles in the whites.]
Pour batter evenly into the 3 cake tins. If you feel like being very precise, you can use a kitchen scale.
Now it's time to add in the cream cheese and cinnamon sugar swirls! The best part! So—have 1 spoon for each. You want to spoon in dollops of each, about 1-1.5 tbsp per dollop (not less!), making sure that you're kind of alternating so that both flavours will be evenly dispersed throughout the cake. Then, take a butter knife, and dip it into the cake batter (all the way to the bottom) starting at 1 end, and essentially drag it through making lines up and down all the way across, as if you were mowing a lawn. Don't make these "rows" too close too each other, as we don't want to mix the swirls into the batter too much, otherwise it won't bake properly. You want to see the components distinctly. Then, you're going to repeat the same thing in the opposite direction (so if you went west to east the first time, now go north to south). This is going to create the prettiest pattern on top!
Place cake tins in the oven, and bake for 24 minutes, or 26 if you have a weak oven. To be honest, this cake is a little scary to bake! Even for me. Why? Well, because it will still be a bit jiggly when it's done, and a toothpick inserted likely won't come out cleanly. This is because of the wetness and instability of the cream cheese swirl—since it's still hot, it hasn't set yet. Soo...be brave lovie! I promise the cake part of mine is always cooked though.
Let the cake cool for 20 minutes (not less, again—the swirls are unstable before they cool), then carefully and gently remove from tins and let them cool completely on cooling racks.
Cardamom Sea Salt Buttercream
Notes
Use whole cardamom pods please. Not the pre-powdered version. It makes the biggest difference, and is absolutely necessary to get that gorgeous special flavour!
Ingredients
27 pods cardamom (small-medium sized, adjust according to the size of yours)
340 g unsalted butter, room-temperature
330 g powdered sugar
150 g cream cheese, room-temperature
1/4 + 1/8 tsp salt (pink Himalayan)
2 1/2 tbsp pure vanilla extract (optional)
Instructions
To grind the cardamom, you will be using a mortar and pestle. Open up the cardamom pods by cutting them in half with a knife. Pour the little beads into the mortar, and grind until fine. I do this in batches, as I find it's hard to do them all at once. I suggest 7-8 pods at once. I don't add the step of passing the cardamom after through a sifter. I just use it like that. If there are any tiny bits in it, I leave them too, I feel they adds little bursts of flavour that I love! So don't worry about being too perfect with the grind.
Place butter in a large bowl, and beat on high speed with an electric mixer for 3 minutes.
Sift in powdered sugar, and beat on high for 3 more minutes.
Still beating on high speed, add in cream cheese, tablespoon by tablespoon. Beat for a whole minute after the final addition of cream cheese.
Add in cardamom, and salt, and beat for 1 more minute. Taste it, and see if you'd like to add more cardamom (pods vary in size, so you may need to adjust)
Beat in vanilla if using. Truthfully it doesn't need it, so it's totally up to you on if you want a pure cardamom flavour, or if you'd like to add the sweet flavour of vanilla to round it all out.
Assembly
Instructions
Put a dollop of the buttercream (about a tablespoon) in the centre of the cake stand, and then place the first cake layer on it (don’t level the cake layers off).
Top with a couple of large dollops of icing (for those who don’t feel comfortable eyeballing this—I used 125 g). Using an offset spatula, disperse icing into an even layer across the cake. Repeat this step with your second layer of cake (just keep it on a plate for now). Refrigerate both of these cake layers for about 25 minutes, or until the icing has hardened fully.
Remove your two cake layers from the fridge. Gently place the second cake layer on top of the first, buttercream side facing up. Top with the third cake layer, flat side up (upside down).
Spread buttercream around the sides and top of the cake. I like to start with an offset spatula, and then take over with an icing smoother (also called a scraper). It’s your choice as to how you want to ice the outside of your cake. I personally like to fill in the gaps of the sides of the cake in this first step, to make it all even, and just do a thin outer layer (crumb coat). I then refrigerate it for about 20-25 minutes.
After that first layer is hardened, I then do a smooth round of icing the cake. Have fun with this! You can do it a little textured, add some stylistic elements with a piping bag or pallet knives, play!
Refrigerate cake for another 30 minutes to solidify the buttercream.
Decorate the top as desired.
Enjoy at room temperature, or just barely chilled. If it has fully chilled in the fridge, the buttercream will be harder, so take it out of the fridge with enough time for the icing to soften before devouring!
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